


Homoerotic Subtext from the Bar Scene in CATFA

by vulcansmirk



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 18:16:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2631527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcansmirk/pseuds/vulcansmirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exactly what it says on the tin. (Or: a film major has a bad day and unwinds by taking screenshots from her new digital copy of CATFA and writing a dumb essay about dumb gay superheroes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homoerotic Subtext from the Bar Scene in CATFA

int. pub. london. 1944.

so this is like  _the scene_  for peggy and steve, right? i mean peggy’s literally turning heads when she walks in

but look at the composition in that last shot. bucky’s in the center. it’s a subtle thing, but an important one. this is a medium shot, which lets us see the characters’ expressions/body language in some detail, as well as giving us some detail in their surroundings. (see that captain america poster hanging over bucky’s head? we’ll get back to that.) so the subjects of the shot — bucky and steve — feel very grounded in the scene. the fact that bucky’s in the center gives the shot, and consequently the scene, a feeling like everything pivots around him. he’s the fulcrum.

this scene isn’t about steve and peggy at all, not really. this scene is about bucky.

so peggy’s turning heads. no question why. look at this dame:

peggy’s in the center of this frame, too, but it’s different —  peggy’s shot here is a full-body shot, which establishes a kind of critical distance between her and the camera. we’re taking all of her in, checking her out, sizing her up, much like the boys are doing.

steve’s the one checking her out, of course. enter our first reaction shot:

yeah, steve, there’s your girl.

so peggy walks over, stands in front of steve. as she’s walking, bucky starts sizing her up.

'oh no she's hot'

and now we have this weird, awkward triangle formation. if this scene really were about peggy and steve, we’d probably only be getting conversation shots of the two of them. instead, we get this: profiles of peggy and steve making eyes at each other, and bucky standing just about in the center (but closer to steve — he’s on steve’s side, after all), looking awkward.

brief note on the disgustingly wonderful subtlety in sebastian stan’s acting: look at that smile. that smile doesn’t say ‘wow you’re gorgeous and i want to bang you,’ it says ‘oh shit you’re gorgeous and i’m threatened by you’. not invitation, but the beginnings of panic.

…and there’s the panic…

…and that’s why.

bucky’s a young, virile, attractive guy, and here he is presented with arguably the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, and definitely one of the first women he’s seen in a while. and he’s ignoring her completely. he’s only got eyes for steve.

but steve clearly has eyes for peggy…

…and bucky knows it.

(anybody else seeing a tiny bit of winter soldier in bucky’s expression here? something dark, something stepped-on, something angry and sad? maybe i’m reading too far into it. who knows. the lighting is certainly interesting — a weak, warm light dispersed from the top right, falling across his shoulder but barely grazing his face, casting most of it in shadow, hiding his expression, making him look secretive and somehow unwholesome… damn i wish i knew more about lighting.)

so we got a reaction shot of steve, and then of bucky. i’ve already said the scene is about bucky, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it  _isn’t_  about peggy and steve. this is where the editing is crucial, because we cut straight from bucky’s reaction shot…

…back to the awkward triangle. no reaction from peggy. no reciprocity on the sexual tension we’re getting from steve. now, the intent behind this could have been perfectly innocent, but what this — skipping peggy’s reaction — does for me is it diverts the sexual tension, transfers it from steve/peggy to steve/bucky. and when bucky looks at steve, his eyelids sit heavy and low, which is extremely suggestive.

meanwhile, this whole time, an actual verbal conversation is happening. (gasp! you forgot, didn’t you?) up to this point, only peggy and steve have said anything, but right here is where bucky decides to cut in, and only then do we get a close-up of peggy — when she’s responding to bucky. (the whole scene pivots around him, see?)

peggy’s googly eyes. oh right, she likes steve. i forgot, because bucky was getting so much gay all over the place.

steve’s reaction:

'aw yeah she's into me'

back to peggy:

my, this is all very heterosexual, isn’t it?

not quite.

now  _that’s_ an invitation. if you couldn’t guess from bucky’s expression here, he’s just asked peggy to dance (‘then what’re we waitin’ for?’). predatory, no? i think this is less the straightforward come-on it seems to be and more of a sly attempt at distracting peggy from steve — at breaking that thick heterosexual tension. bucky was panicking at first, defensive, but here he’s starting to attack. if bucky knows anything, it’s how to distract a woman.

only peggy’s no ordinary woman, and she’s not having any of it.

her eyes are for steve only. doesn’t glance at bucky once. what’s she waiting for? ‘the right partner’ — and she’s looking right at steve as she says it, as if to say,  _you’re it._

message received.

and then peggy, like the powerful woman she is, leaves steve wanting more.

the lighting in that second shot there does a lot for me. you can see steve’s whole expression, but bucky’s face is in shadow, and you can’t tell what he’s thinking at all. this says something much more insidious to me than simple comic relief (‘i’m turning into you, it’s like a horrible dream’). he’s been ignored, and of course that’ll bruise his ego, and that’s what he comments on for steve — but more than that, bucky’s feeling something that can’t or shouldn’t exist in the light.

and look at the way he stares after peggy:

that’s not the petty insult of rejection on his face — that is bitter and bone-deep jealousy. she’s captured steve’s eye, she’s taking him away, and bucky’s not pleased.

when peggy’s gone, bucky looks back at steve

and then

he looks

away.

the light across bucky’s face here isn’t particularly dynamic, but it is rather dim — as though the emotion he’s presenting to steve (the nonchalant ‘how could i be rejected’ look, the comic relief look) is straightforward, but, like the light, a little murky, a little insincere.

(i just wish i could see his expression when he meets steve’s eye up there, because i have the feeling it would flash with something like  _oh god i didn’t want to see that._  like steve’s expression is the final confirmation that he’s pulling toward peggy, and away from bucky. but that’s just my  ~~hope~~  theory.)

so then there’s the line about ‘i’m turning into you,’ blah blah blah (and that line always feels a little unnecessarily venomous to me — you bitter, bucky?), and then the final shot in the scene:

there’s our dynamic lighting. steve’s an open book, but bucky’s face is covered in shadow. he’s feeling that lightless thing again, the thing that can’t and shouldn’t be seen.

now, i don’t think this scene is 100% about bucky’s unrequited love for steve. most of it, for me, is just about how bucky has changed since fighting in the war, and since being captured and experimented on by zola. there’s something dark in him now, something unwholesome, and he hasn’t shown it to steve. nor will he, because captain america is literally hanging over his head.

yes, remember the poster i mentioned? look back at some of the awkward triangle shots. it’s in those ones, too. this whole scene is overshadowed by captain america — as opposed to steve rogers — and i think that’s a lot of what’s gone into bucky’s silence.

when the boys crane their necks to watch peggy approach, the poster hangs over bucky’s head; when peggy stands and talks with them, the poster is behind her. it’s important that we take both of these together — bucky’s spatial relationship with the poster as well as peggy’s — because we have to remember that this scene isn’t about peggy, it’s about bucky. peggy isn’t a vain woman; she doesn’t take interest in steve just because he’s got a hot new bod and a bold new name. but bucky wasn’t there when they met, and given how defensive he is in this whole scene, it’s no stretch for him to imagine that peggy’s more interested in captain america than in steve rogers. this is important because bucky’s just been thrust into steve’s brave new world, and everything in it — steve’s new body, his new name, his new relationship with a real live female — threatens him, and everything in it, according to bucky, relates back to the serum.

the way i see it, bucky demonizes the serum for two reasons, both of which are presented in this scene. one reason is that it means everyone can see how wonderful steve is now, not just bucky, so where bucky used to have steve all to himself, now he has to share with the rest of the world. he’s afraid steve’s gonna leave him behind, for peggy, for america, whatever. the other reason is that the serum amplified everything good in steve, made him into this unattainable golden boy; meanwhile, bucky’s just been through hell, both in the war and in zola’s chair, and he’s feeling dirtier and lower than he ever had a reason to before. so for steve to be so incredibly good is alienating to bucky, because where steve became something more than human, bucky became something less, and what used to be a small gap between bucky and the most important person in his life has suddenly widened into a chasm. bucky’s worried about losing steve, but he’s also worried he’s already lost him.

the homoeroticism in this scene comes to me in shades — the way shots are cut together; the intricacies of bucky’s expressions — but this scene is also a really important one, i think, for bucky’s character, as well as his relationship to steve, romantic or otherwise.

tl;dr …feels.

 

[[EDIT]] in case you still had any doubts, AraniaArt down in the comments drew my attention to [this post](http://soupdaiz.tumblr.com/post/87548133105/um-so-i-dont-know-if-people-are-generally-aware) on tumblr which has the lyrics to the song all the commandos are drunkenly singing when peggy walks in, and. i just.  _could you be any more obvious guys jesus christ_


End file.
